One of the things that comes up online in the debates on the whole US vs UK methods of health care, is the amount of research that takes place. One of the arguments the far right in the US makes is that the US is doing all the research on health care because places with socialist health care systems do not spend much on it.

Well it so happens that I work at a relatively minor University in the UK, and although I do not spend a great deal of time looking around at what the researchers do, I am aware that at least one research group is engaged in research in the health area (specifically looking at developing drugs). So I was curious to look into just how much medical research goes on in a country with a socialist health care system that some claim means spending practically nothing on medical research.

The first thing to bear in mind when it comes to research is that you can come up with a list of gadgets that has “US” down as the inventor, but things are rarely that simple. Often inventions are based on earlier research done by somebody else.

Secondly, whilst the UK health care system is socialistic, the pharmaceutical sector is private and quite healthy. Out of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies (listed by Wikpedia), 4 are US-based, and 6 are European based. Of the European based companies only 1.5 are UK-based (one is listed as “UK/Sweden”). One of the UK-based companies spends in the region of $6 billion per year on research and development; bettered only by one of the US-based companies (although figures for the amount spent is not available for some of the companies).

So lets’s see if we can add up the spending on medical research in the UK :-

Organisation

Year(s)

Spend

Medical Research Council

2008/9

£704 million

The Wellcome Trust

2008/9

“over £600 million”

BUPA UK (private health care)

2008/9

£1.5 million

Cancer Research UK

2008/9

£355 million

NIHR/PRP (NHS Research)

2008/9

£912 million

UK Pharmaceutical R&D

2008

$12 billion

AMRC members (including Cancer Research UK)

2006/7

£791 million

Whilst looking around for the figures above, I can across an interesting claim by Cancer Research UK – of the top 20 cancer treatment drugs in use around the world, 19 of them came about in whole or partly because of research funded by Cancer Research UK.

Excluding the rest of the AMRC members (for which I only have 2006/7 figures), the total here is some £2572 million in one year. This amounts to £42 per person per year. Or $67 according to today’s exchange rate. Plus added to that is the total spent by UK pharmaceutical companies which amounts to $12 billion a year – increasing our per person spend to $267. Of course we’re also not including the percentage of funding that US pharmaceutical companies make that is due to the drugs purchased by the NHS – doesn’t that also count as spending by the UK on medical research ?

The US overall apparently spends $95 billion on medical research which comes out at about $316 per person per year. Quite a bit more than the UK spends. But the US is richer, and we’re underestimating the UK spend on medical research and not counting European research at all which is partly funded by the UK.

Even if the UK does spend significantly less than the US, it certainly does spend a lot on medical research so the idea that a socialist health care system will cause spending on research to practically cease is wrong. Besides none of this number crunching tells us anything about how effective the spending is.

Indeed. Comparing how much the US and the UK spends on medical research in proper depth is something that can’t be done in a blog entry by someone who doesn’t have more than an hour or two to spend on Googling. In addition to the fact you’ve mentioned, there’s also :-

* Currency fluctuations over the last two years have made the UK’s investment look less than it is.
* Some of the new drugs developed and released by ‘US’ companies are in fact developed (at least partially) overseas.

As a non-health example of the later, many people think that the (Winchester) hard drive was invented by a US company (IBM). Well it was certainly IBM, but I’ve visited the lab where much of the development was carried out – a small place just outside Winchester, UK!

Matt

You can’t compare a capitalist healthcare vs a socialist healthcare and just write off the accomplishments of the US because the capitalist system has more money.
The US has more money BECAUSE of our capitalist system. We let people be free (or at least used to) and work hard to achieve wealth. Many of those who have become rich on our system have graciously decided to give charitably, but more importantly, pharmaceutical companies have a profit motive to take the enormous risks involved in researching cures that are guaranteed to cost millions with no guarantee of money returns. This creates a win/win scenario. A win for the entrepreneurs taking risks as well as gaining profits that allow for even more research, and a win for people that would otherwise have no means of treatment. I’m glad for whatever contributions the UK government has declared the ‘right amount’ for research and what new treatments they’ve contributed, but make no mistake – if the US socializes medicine completely, the US’s towering contributions will certainly not be the same, and the world will be the worse for it.
I know the UK has some capitalism, and some socialism, but I hope that doesn’t stop you from missing the point.

Cheers!

p.s. @mike: Giving credit to Winchester for the work is great, but where did the funding come from? The US capitalist company IBM and largely from US consumers. This example gives more credence to the US capitalist system, not less.

Hmm. The US has more money ? For 2011, the US had an estimated GDP of 15 trillion dollars GDP; the EU had a GDP of 17 trillion dollars. Sometimes people from the US underestimate just how rich Europe is. The US is the world’s richest country because it has European levels of productivity and a very large population – it’s 15th richest in terms of GDP per capita and of those above the US in GDP per capita, 9 are European.

Like many large multi-nationals, IBM may have originally been a US company but is no longer – which is what multi-national is – and without selling a big pile of iron in the UK, IBM wouldn’t be here. So claiming that the IBM’s research is paid for by just US consumers is a touch inaccurate.

Similarly (and back to the subject), the research budgets of all pharmaceutical companies (and not just US ones) is paid for by all the world’s consumers not just the US ones. Do you imagine that Johnson&Johnson (for example) only sell their products in the US?

I get your point; I just don’t agree with it.

Ed Carman

Seems you say a lot to say nothing, make a lot of false assumptions based on your leftist opinion and leave those of us who know you are full of shit saying, “see, we’re right”.

I suspect someone has been interfering with your medications given your incoherent rambling and tendency to repeat my own words back to me.

Are you sure you’re not an AI troll?

Ed Carman

Again, no facts, just blurbling insults that have no bearing on reality. You can’t argue from a position of reason and logic, so you babble more nonsense. The fact is, the statistics prove you are full of shit, so you insult and make up shit about medications and the bridge your ugly, uneducated ass lives under. You are a Communist, you want shit for free because you are unable or unwilling to earn for yourself…. but you just can’t admit it to yourself, much less to others. Lol, insult again…. don’t let the facts start interfering with your nonsensical babbling now….

1. I’m not a communist; neither do I want shit for free.
2. I earn enough for my purposes (around the $85,000 level).
3. I don’t own an ass; if I needed something to transport shit I’d buy a van. The word you are grasping for is arse (you colonials can’t speak the language properly).
4. I don’t live under a bridge. Trolls live under a bridge; you’ll see one if you look in a mirror.

Facts? Right at the top of this threat of pointless comments are a whole bunch of facts, and you are free to counter argue with facts of your own. As all you’ve done is dive straight into rather pathetic insults, I assume you don’t have any.

Ed Carman

And the fool rages on. The United States bears the overwhelming burden of medical research. You see the facts and you don’t like them, so you babble nonsense with no evidence, not truth, no logic, no proof, no facts to attempt to somehow muddy the water, give the appearance that the facts can’t be believed or are mitigated by unproven BULLSHIT you attempt to present as real…. rage on fool, your nonsense accomplishes nothing because it has no substance and only prevents peace and quiet. Rage on….fool.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the article was in response to the hypothesis that countries with socialised medicine spend almost nothing on health care research, and I’ve demolished that by showing that the UK does spend a significant amount of money on medical research. Not as much as the US admittedly (which is actually in the article) but a significant amount.

If I were to try and demonstrate that the US does not spend an overwhelming majority of the total spend on medical research, I would (after I’d stopped laughing) write a somewhat different article with somewhat different facts – hopefully more up to date ones.

However I’m not planning to do so to suit a credulous cretin with the intelligence of a pint of pusating pustule pus like yourself.

Ed Carman

Ahhhh…..something else that doesn’t resemble an an argument based in facts. Dude, shut up already. You have no argument, your initial post proved you are full of shit. UK spending is small, you are arguing points that you can’t support with evidence. Keep raging, fool. I have to produce no evidence to dispute you. The burden of proof is on you and you have NOTHING BUT OPINIONS. I’m snoozing. …….

You might be better off asking politely given that you’re commentating on *my* site, but I dare say that you couldn’t manage that. Go back under your bridge troll.

Ed Carman

Ask for facts, from you? Facts that support your opinions? A waste of time, polite or not. Have a good week chap, brush yourself off and let the lesson sink in, the facts don’t give a shit about your opinions, they remain the facts no matter how much you doubt them with feelings.

Obviously you’ve been too brainwashed to comprehend plain English properly. The facts support my hypothesis that a country with proper health care (the UK) does spend a significant amount on medical research; there’s nothing dramatically controversial in that unless you’re on the lunatic fringe of the anti-socialised medicine gang.

I really don’t think you would know a fact if one bit you on the arse.

Ed Carman

No, they don’t. The facts contradict your nonsense. The US spends far more than Great Britain and most other countries spend nothing or next to it and sponge completely off of the United States. You have presented a few facts, leaving out many, but the ones you presented prove the opposite of your hypothesis. Go to bed socialist warrior…. just go rest that soft head.

You obviously wouldn’t know a fact if it bit you on the arse. Gotten a new prescription for your medicines yet? Obviously it hasn’t kicked in as you’re still coming across as a deranged lunatic with the mental capacity of a crushed peanut.

Ed Carman

The numbers don’t support you, no matter how much you twist them. Again, lunatic, medications, prescriptions, crushed peanuts and something you know a lot about. …asses or arses as you say…. no facts that support your argument. …American research spending not only dwarfs UK spending, it dwarfs EU spending as a whole…. facts, those pesky things leftists of all vile stripes (Marxists, Communists and dumb ass Socialists alike) hate. Keep babbling baseless insults on your $2 a year Web site, pretending like it’s a real, legitimate, respected page…..lol. BOOUUUUUUUUYYYYY for you, you got your free Web page set up and $2 annual maintence so you can babble your propaganda to 4 people. Lol

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